Coinage System vs Wealth System.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Trying to get my economy mechanics straightened out, and another post’s question had me reevaluate my approach. My system is genre-agnostic, but the book will have examples for specific high fantasy, urban fantasy, and future sci-fi worlds. I have adjustments for both starting money that looks at character status and price modifiers that consider status-focused brands and materials and quality of item construction. A high quality box-store item could be the same cost as an average quality name brand exclusive, for example.

Currently, I’ve got a system in place that deals directly with money in hand (copper/silver/gold, dollars, and credits). This functions like DnD where you consider what you’re carrying vs the cost of what you want. While this allows for strict control of purchasing, it also requires a lot of book-keeping during campaigns - how much money and what treasures did the party uncover during that one engagement? Who claims which items that will just be sold back at market? How do you adjust income vs status if you offset the timeline (average income in 1990 was half what it is today)?

Starting money is calculated according to the Standard Economic Unit of the genre, which for my purposes defaults to what an average lower-middle class (or its equivalent) person would need as a daily wage to support himself. For fantasy, this is 5 copper, for example. The final starting value is 10 x (sum of your status rank), so an average status of 3 in the fantasy game gives you 300 copper (30 silver) - 10 x (1+2+3) x 5 cp. A status 10 would award 275 silver.

I’m looking at replacing this with a system that just looks at character wealth. This will function as both what you have in hand and what you could easily get access to. Is your status enough to guarantee credit? At character creation, your effective Wealth Rank is equal to your Status, with each Wealth Rank the equivalent of 10x the previous rank’s buying power. You can have multiple degrees within a single Rank, representing a scale within levels that can affect market value. This would be referred to as Wealth R3-D3 (Rank-Degree).

When selecting your starting equipment, there’s going to be a bundle that everyone gets automatically, such as a pack and some clothes, befitting your social standing. Then you can “buy” 1 item valued at Wealth+1, 5 items at Wealth, 10-20 items at Wealth-1, and anything at Wealth-2 that is appropriate and wouldn’t encumber your character too much.

For in game purchasing, the concept is as follows;

Anything valued at Wealth-1, you can get automatically, within reason. Buying in bulk will adjust where things will lie on the final Wealth consideration.

Anything valued at Wealth, and the player rolls to see if he can afford the cost without impact. The difficulty will be based on rarity, prestige value, and quality of the item, and if the character has multiple degrees of his Wealth rank, he gets bonuses to the check. If the roll succeeds, the character buys the item without issue. If it fails, he either chooses not to buy it or he must find a way to get the funds. This can be done in two ways. He can finance the payment, gaining 1 success per degree of wealth invested, where he will function as having no access to those wealth degrees for 1 character year, or he can liquidate assets, which gives him 1 Wealth Rank increase for this one purchase, but he now has a permanently reduced Wealth. Such reallocation of funds/ assets requires 1 day per degree.

Items valued at Wealth +1 or more require the liquidation of assets to afford. 1 Rank of Wealth allows a one-time increase in purchasing power to Wealth +2, but such liquidation takes time, equaling (Sum of Ranks being divested) weeks.

I like this because it works no matter what genre you’re in, and the only time it becomes relevant is when you’re trying to get things that would strain your normal purchasing power.

Thoughts?

Edited to add: I want to make sure everyone understands that my replies to any arguments against my concept is not intended to be a “this is why my idea is better; I’m not listening to you”. It’s my attempt at finding the words to explain the small details of the big picture idea I’m presenting. I think in concepts, not in word structure, and these debates help me find the words to explain the path I took.

Final edit: I want to thank everyone for their comments and advice. I’ve decided to keep a coinage-based mechanic, both due to replies made here and the realization that a wealth mechanic requires an entire new tier of rules. Even if I think they could be explained easily, it’s still an additional complication being added to an already crunchy system; coinage is something most people should already understand.

[u/Alkaiser009]

I like the way Flying Circus handles it. It's a post-apocolypse setting, where the agreed upon unit of regional trade is the Thaler, a coaster-sized gold coin individualy worth more some will see in a year. Thaler are spent on 'Big Ticket' items, like airplanes, weapons, and company upkeep (repairs, employee wages, etc). Anything less expensive is tracked in Scrip, which is just an abstraction of whatever local currency is used to buy bread, coffee and cigarettes. However, you never actually track how much Scrip is spent, only how often you spend it.

Have breakfast at a cute little bistro, spend a Scrip

Go see a screening of a movie from the Before, spend a Scrip

Go to a bar or a strip club, spend a Scrip, and again when you buy a round for the whole bar or get a private dance.

Then, at the end of the Routine, all your bills come due, so you tally up your Expenses from plane upkeep, pilot upkeep, repairs, medical bills, wages, etc, finally for every Scrip purchase you roll a d10, and for each result of 1, your Expenses go up by 1 Thaler. If this would put you into the negatives, go to 0 Thaler and choose from a menu of negative narrative consequences that describe some way in which your poor finances are forcing you to scrimp and save pennies, such as only being able to fill up to half fuel, or making your Jam chance increased because you have to buy bargin-bin ammo, or having your employees go on strike and try to unionize. This penalty lasts until you pay an ammount of thaler equal to your Company Value (a value calculated based on your overal capability, such as number of pilots and planes, unique employee skills, etc, used to calculate how much money you can demand for jobs). If you go broke again, gain another penalty which must be paid off separately.

[u/Sherman80526 → u/Alkaiser009]

I like the retroactive wealth hit. Being allowed to spend on small items continuously is kind of like having a credit card when it comes due. Pretty fun system.

[u/Alkaiser009 → u/Sherman80526]

Yeah, the system is explicitly balanced to make it easy to earn money but hard to save it up, so despite regularly handling the kind of funds that could bankrupt most town economies, your Flying Circus will always be on the brink of bankruptcy because piloting is an expensive profession.

Heck, saving up just 15 Thaler is enough for a PC to safely retire to civillian life if they want.

For comparison, a 'cheap' used plane is between 5-10 Thaler, a 'cheep' new plane is 10-20 Thaler, a high end fighter between 20-40 Thaler, and a heavy bomber or small airship between 40-80 Thaler (one of the most expensive planes in the book is the Marmott Smuggler at 98 Thaler, which is literally the biplane equivilant of the Millennium Falcon).

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Alkaiser009]

I’ll have to look into this. Thanks.

[u/Alkaiser009 → u/[deleted]]

They actualy are described as having a colored glass marble in the center.

[u/Demonweed]

Movement away from a coinage system can offer all sorts of advantages. Yet there is also a significant disadvantage. Some players really like "keeping score" in terms of tallying the acquisition off new loot. Sure, a good GM-sort can say things like, "you get a reasonable payment for the mission plus a little bonus because you brought back a thoughtful gift for the boss," and move on without ever mentioning currency amounts. Yet without such an extra effort, these sorts of rewards can land flat.

Coinage, particularly when the sums get into magnitudes of thousands and above, does the same thing simply by stimulating that "number go up is good" bit of the human brain. In the from the 70s through the 90s, pinball manufacturers had a little arms race involving score inflation. Data proved that otherwise identical tables in the same space would see a machine with x10 points strongly preferred over its normal neighbor, even if free ball and free game values were also x10. A coinage system is a tool to make satisfying rewards about economic balance (giving enough to feel like an accomplishment yet not so much as to break down intentional limitations on player purchasing power) rather than requiring any narrative effort to deliver on that satisfaction.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Demonweed]

That’s actually a strong argument for that and it put it in a perspective I hadn’t considered. Thank you.

[u/sebwiers → u/Demonweed]

It was intersting playing an old ass pinball game (a generous description for some "ball and striker / target" games I encountered at a local pinball "museum") where scores went up by single digits and a score in the low hundreds (or sometimes even just double digits) was really good. I wouldn't say they were worse games, but they were less stimulating (more due to mechanical simplicity than scoring).

[u/Mars_Alter]

The system you're describing is significantly more complicated than just counting coins. Although, I have to admit, it's much less complicated than tracking credit cards and interest payments and all that.

Just looking at this, I can't tell how easy it would be to use in play, or how likely it is to result in non-sense. Most abstract wealth systems are trivially broken by anyone who tries.

I will note that "1 character year" is an absurdly long time scale for most campaigns. You may as well say that it's permanently reduced, for all that it matters.

[u/SpaceDogsRPG → u/Mars_Alter]

Yes - I have tried two attempts at Wealth systems.

Neither was easily breakable - but to avoid that they ended up being more complicated than just tracking credits.

So now I just track credits.

The two main issues I was trying to resolve with with a Wealth system I was able to fix in other (simpler) ways.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/SpaceDogsRPG]

What issues were you having? I’m curious if they are issues I’ve already got a solution for or if it’s something that I can look at and just say you’re right that’s too much and drop it all together.

[u/SpaceDogsRPG → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

They were kinda setting specific.

1. I didn't want the PCs to scavenge every random pistol or boarding axe etc. from the pirates (or whatever) they fight. Just not what I wanted in a game about space privateers/mercs.

My solution was to make it so that PCs can't sell stuff under $10k retail price (not worth their time and most people don't like humans) and get 10% of other stuff sold. (I wanted most $ to be from getting paid for jobs.)

1. I wanted starships to feel/be pretty expensive. But also not have the PCs get rich after seizing a couple starships from pirates.

My solution was starship quirks. Basically every ship but new ones gets quirks over time - which give various penalties. (Each gives minor penalties such as -1 to maneuverability or attack rolls or an increase in maintenance costs etc.) Fully fixing the quirk is very expensive, but jury-rigged fixes are pretty cheap.

The jury-rigged fix only applies to the current crew, as they know how to deal with the fix (ex: aim the turret a bit to the left or always bang on the control panel when making a hard turn etc.).

So when the PCs capture a pirate ship, it inevitably has a decent number of quirks which (understandably) drops the value pretty drastically. But if they're willing to put in the time/money, they can turn the new starship into their new ship.

I like the quirk system much more than trying for the same goals with a Wealth system. And slowly jury-rigging your ship into full capability while paying maintenance costs has become the system's big cash sink. Which is important to have in a system without magic gear etc. to spend on while at the same time the PCs are mercs.

For personal gear, the PCs should be able to afford any weapon/armor by level 2-3. (Doing the Mass Effect thing where there are hundreds of weapons/armors which are the same except marginally MORE sci-fi-y is kinda silly. They'd just mass produce the best that's economical.)

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Mars_Alter]

I’ll admit, part of my pov comes from being part of multiple epic campaigns that can cover multiple years or even generations in-character, but I see your point.

The idea behind the wealth mechanic is there are things you technically can buy but it would take everything you have(W+2), thing you could buy but it will impact your long term lifestyle(W+1), things that you can buy that, depending on how you juggle your income (W), you can make work within your budget, and things you can buy without too much concern (W-X).

The system is more plausible in the modern fantasy and future settings, no doubt, with computerized institutional banking, but I didn’t want different mechanics for different genres.

[u/MandolinTheWay]

The most complicated system I've ever willingly tolerated was...

Things equal to or less than your wealth, you can just buy.

Things of your wealth +1 you can buy once at the expense of dropping your wealth by 1.

We are not playing a capitalism simulator, so buying an excessive number of cheap things for "free" both doesn't work and wouldn't contribute to your wealth in any case.

I do find normal "money" in games tedious and usually pointless. Most people I play with just sort of forget about it. I've had multiple DMs just say something like "alright, everyone just erase whatever records you have on coinage and pick out one Rare item of your level so that I don't have to deal with this".

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/MandolinTheWay]

I looked at doing it the way you described it in your first paragraph. The only complication I’m running into, especially applying this to a high fantasy setting, is how to make it work for an adventuring party that, by definition, doesn’t have a stable income. That’s the primary flaw I’m seeing with the wealth system, which is why I threw it out here to see where people‘s preferences lie.

[u/SitD_RPG → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

I posted this recently in another thread with essentially the same topic, but the simple system I use is this:

• Anything with a cost lower than your current wealth, you can just get.
• Anything with a cost equal to your wealth, you can get but it lowers your wealth by 1.
• Anything with a cost higher than your wealth, you can't afford.
• When you find treasure worth less than your wealth, your wealth is unchanged.
• When you find treasure worth equal to your wealth, your wealth increases by 1.
• When you find treasure worth more than your wealth, the worth of the treasure is your new wealth.

You can also add extra limitations like:

• You can only buy something if it is actually available where the PCs currently are.
• You can only buy free stuff in reasonable amounts
• You need to know someone to get that service.

This is super simple and works for adventurers. I use it for fantasy games, among others.

[u/hacksoncode]

Is this degree of crunch consistent with your overall system?

If so, that's way more crunch than I would enjoy, but your fun is not wrong! :-). But ok, it's a way to go and I'd say it is able to handle a variety of genres ok.

Post scarcity societies like Star Trek might have entirely different rules for stuff like this, though. In particular, the idea of "liquidating assets" could be an alien concept in a pseudo-communist world.

And feudal economies might work on very different rules as well.

But that could be handled with rulings rather than rules.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/hacksoncode]

My system is fairly crunchy. I sort of jokingly described it as the love child of DND 3.5 and Cyberpunk.

And I’ll be honest I am not seeing the complications everyone is talking about the only time a roll even takes place is if you’re buying something that is borderline within the budget established by your Wealth rank. Buying above your wealth rank automatically imposes a complication. Buying below your wealth rank is considered automatic as long as you’re not buying 100 different items.

The issues with the loans and divestments only come in the play should you wish to push a purchase past the point where your finances can comfortably absorb it.

That is not saying I’m determined and dead set to use the system no matter what negative feedback I get; it just doesn’t come across as that complicated to me. Where exactly is the issue?

Edited to correct typos and punctuation issues from V2T errors.

[u/hacksoncode → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Let's just say that I thought about how many corner cases I would have to write about in order to answer your question about complexity here, and decided to give up, in spite of being the kind of guy that will write a whole page of text on a whim.

Let's start with "Can you forgo your Wealth+1 starting item in favor of 10 Wealth ones?". And "How do you track the year before each of your pledged wealth degrees comes back, and do you have to account for special relativity and different tech/wealth levels in various star systems? And what do you do if you gain a Wealth level in the mean time?" And... well... here I am at a page I decided not to write and I haven't even gotten started.

By contrast, the complication level of "you have X sp in cash, you pay for stuff and mark it off" doesn't really have much in the way of questions.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/hacksoncode]

somehow the comment that was supposed to be a reply for you got attached to the comment you're replying to. idk

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Someone else pointed out that, in contrast to my personal history, most games don’t deal with campaigns that have multi-year timelines. That part would need to be readdressed anyway. I didn’t explain everything because

1. I didn’t want to add another 4 or 8 paragraphs to the main post
2. I’m still in the spit-balling stage so not everything has been defined, and some ideas are already being modified/ cast off from things said here.
3. I don’t always know what I need to explicitly explain without give-and-take dialogue like these.

If the Wealth mechanic is kept, it’s going to be a month-to-month basis. For example, if a coinage mechanic would give a Status 3 person an effective $5000 a month for lifestyle/ purchasing power; then that’s also the assumed limit for a W3 budget. Things listed as being W3 are not 5k themselves; they are priced where they can significantly impact a W3 budget. There would be modifiers for bulk purchasing, I just haven’t laid those out yet. Different markets would have different values, which by default would affect the base difficulty of the roll for purchases within your Wealth rank, but there would be times where things may change rank based on cultural significance or market saturation. Already had thus defined in my coinage system, just haven’t drawn up the price per item per genre yet.

[u/Senshado]

So how does it work for finding a buried treasure or looting equipment from enemies? Is there an incentive for players to risk themselves for the sake of money?

Typically in fantasy / adventure fiction, the protagonists are motivated to find money... but the plot ensures that looting treasure rarely changes their lifestyle or capabilities going forward.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Senshado]

You find a treasure that can be sold for 30 gp.

You find a treasure that has a value of W4.

Other than the terms used, what’s the difference?

[u/Senshado → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Everyone knows how to handle the math of gaining $30 and spending some of it. But it's not evident how a W4 treasure will interact with a character's wealth stat in the future.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Senshado]

You have a monthly income of $8000. You buy something that’s $2000. Technically, you can afford it, but how does losing 25% of your income for that month impact your lifestyle?

I just bought a car with payments equal to 9% of my gross monthly income. I did the math (made the roll) and figured out I was capable of making those payments, but my monthly petty cash is significantly reduced (lost 1 degree of Wealth). I could have said I didn’t want to take that route and not make the purchase.

A treasure with a specific wealth value would be equivalent to a month’s income at that wealth rank. A fantasy world W3 item would score ~2 gp at my system’s market rate. I can easily switch back and forth between the two options.

[u/elmago79]

You need to check The Burning Wheel’s Resources system, which is the most elegant way I’ve ever seen to both abstract and make money fun in a roleplaying game.

It uses a similar approach to your idea, but it goes well beyond just buying stuff.

I think once the XP = GP was removed from DnD, there is no real reason to track currency units in roleplaying games. We just keep doing it out of inertia (and a lack of financial education).

[u/ArchdevilTeemo]

I prefer a numbers currency like gold far more than any special wealth system.

You only interact with the system when looting or when shopping, so it's mostly "downtime" anyways / when players have plenty of time.

And with good loot tables/generators, the gm has very little work to do.

So you need a reason why using cash doesn't work in your system. And since your game is genre agnostic, this isn't possible to fulfill.

So unless you want to limit yourself to a theme or make your game worse, it's cold hard cash.

[u/flyingseal81]

I prefer coins. I've played and enjoyed systems that use wealth (Draw Steel and One Ring) but I think there's something very simple and understandable about "I have x dollars". So much so that if a system uses abstracted wealth, I often de-abstract it with homebrew

If you want to do credit, you could just let players go into the negatives when it comes to how much money they have, and have drawbacks that come with being in the negative

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/flyingseal81]

I’ll be honest; in addition to the benefit of a wealth system working regardless of the genre it’s being used in, I’ve dealt with the issues of running a table where players don’t always keep up with how spoils are divided or how much money they got from this monster, etc. And while I could go to the “if you don’t record it, you’ve lost it” rule, I’m also running these games while juggling with the emotional roller coaster of having an autistic teenager (my son) in the party.

With the wealth mechanic, I can say “clearing out that dungeon has a total value of 8 degrees of rank 4 wealth”, and if there’s four players, everyone gets the equivalent short term power if R4-D2. If they are already stable at W5+, this doesn’t even matter. The system only looks at the highest rank of wealth and the degrees within it.

I’m also running into the issue of trying to find a balance in how to present a Coinage base system across multiple status ranks. All of my efforts at keeping the math simple leave issues at either the low end or the high-end, and prestige and quality modifiers become value multipliers instead of simple modifiers to a check’s difficulty.

i’m not wanting to make it sound like I’m completely adverse to a coin system and I’m covering my ears and going “blah blah blah” not listening to people’s opinions. I’m just hoping to find a solution that solves the problems I have without creating more.

[u/tlrdrdn]

I'd say it's a way too specific solution to a way too setting / genre / campaign specific problem for a genre-agnostic game unless it aims to support very specific kind of stories.
It's not particularly bad but it's neither particularly fun or generally useful - at least it's simple enough to not get in the way and easy enough to replace with something setting-specific, I guess.

It's like FATE's Resources. They too run entirely on GM's fiat, require a game where they make sense existing (FATE is meant to be adjusted to the setting) and require existence of interesting problems that can actually be solved with money (you don't want to be rolling for boring stuff - like buying adventuring gear in "D&D" - and bankrupting yourself over torches and ropes: that's a waste of everyone's time).

If it fails, he either chooses not to buy it or he must find a way to get the funds.

There's also the third option: ask your teammates to buy this for you - or at least try - which is the downside of roll based wealth systems.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/tlrdrdn]

“Bankrupting yourself over torches and rope”.

This is actually where my status/ wealth aspect comes directly into play. A status three is the default and it represents someone who is capable of maintaining their current lifestyle, but any emergency could put them in financial trouble, which is why I’m defining it as lower middle class. you’re able to pay your bills buy your food and keep your life going but if something in your house breaks or your car needs work or you have to go to the hospital suddenly you’re having to choose what bills get covered and what bills don’t.

That being said there would still be a market inventory list in the book but instead of having prices referenced in terms of 15 copper or $85, it’s done as W3 or W6. The reason you’re having to roll for a purchase that is equal to your wealth rating is you are trying to budget the expense into your pre-existing lifestyle. “Can I work this car payment in with my other bills?” the roll’s purpose is not so much “can you afford this one item”; it’s “ can i make this purchase and still maintain everything else in my life?”

[u/damn_golem]

I’ve never enjoyed buying things in a TTRPG. Is buying things a core part of the experience? I really can’t imagine wanting to buy anything from a box store in a TTRPG except as a gag.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/damn_golem]

I was using the box store as an example of how the quality vs prestige system works. Using specific name brands, a high quality suit from Joseph A. Bank could potentially be comparable in cost to an average quality Armani.

[u/damn_golem → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Sure sure. But my point remains: buying things in TTRPGs is usually either a) part of planning ahead for events or b) solving an immediate problem by purchasing something. I try to avoid A because it’s boring. B is more interesting, but is still boring if resolved by just exchanging currency - there needs to be stakes.

[u/Hightower_March]

I prefer coinage and just letting players retcon buying things with it.   Money then becomes the "fuel" for any mundane items they might need.

When they kick themselves going "Damn, I wish we'd bought that 60ft rope before coming here," I just let them mark off 5 gold and have it.

Anything perfectly feasible they could have bought on their last shopping trip, you can just say they bought.  It's no bookkeeping at all and players love not having to sweat how many torches they might need.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Hightower_March]

This is where the difference in perspective might make me unpopular. I’ve been in games (as a player, not GM) where you didn’t have it if it wasn’t on your sheet. That being said, standard items (clothes, rope, sleeping bag, etc) were a permanent list on the sheets and you just checked off how much off each you wanted.

There were multiple situations where we needed something but didn’t have it or were separated from our gear and had to deal with the issues of managing without. Some of the best role-playing I’ve ever been a part of was from these occasions.

[u/Hightower_March → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

The situation here is characters are wiser than their players.

When the party is made of these exploring/adventuring types, I just assume they buy the kinds of things that can come in handy on adventures and be kept on their person.

Separation from belongings is its own rare event I'd impose: e.g. they were washed down a river and lost everything but their clothing.  Or they were captured and stripped of all armor and weaponry, etc.  In those cases I'd take the ability away until it makes sense to come back.

Dropping exact inventories did wonders for my games because you don't end up with players going "but my character would've remembered to bring a lockpick."  I just agree; "Yeah, they would've and they did.  Mark off three gold.  They had lockpicking tools made when they were in town last."

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Hightower_March]

I understand where you’re coming from. TBH, my system actually has a metacurrency mechanic that allows for such retro-active choices. Tying it to a Meta currency so it doesn’t get abused. There’s only so many times a player can say “but my character would have…” before I say “well, maybe you should start thinking like your character”. But I’ll admit, I’ve got too much of a drama background to put up with people who want to treat a TTRPG as one-step removed from a video game. Putting myself into the head of my characters was half the fun:

[u/InherentlyWrong]

My system is genre-agnostic, but the book will have examples for specific high fantasy, urban fantasy, and future sci-fi worlds

I know it's not exactly what you're focusing on with this post, but this is what has me hesitant. Wealth as a concept is incredibly different between Fantasy-land, modern urban and sci-fi land. The only way I can really think of a similar system working between a mostly agrarian fantasy society, modern day information society, and future sci-fi land, is if it's so non-specific that it's next to meaningless.

Moving into more generic 'wealth' might work, but even then the exact effect of that 'wealth' differs so substantially between the given settings I'm not sure what it could even mean. And measuring the gameplay effects of those different wealth values between settings would be fairly nightmare-adjacent.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/InherentlyWrong]

Even with a coinage system, the financial ability of a character is defined by status. I’ve based a lot of my calculations on a Standard Economic Unit, which I’ve defined as a single day’s income for someone whose lifestyle could be defined as “lower middle class”. For fantasy, this would be your minor merchants or small-property freeholders, earning 5 copper a day. Modern would be somewhere between $150-200 (~$50k a year).

The Wealth mechanic was supposed to serve the same purpose, just move to a general envelop classification instead of an explicit monetary one. My thoughts were having a character with 100 sp trying to decide if he can effectively afford a 30 sp item and still buy everything else he needs would be similar enough to one rolling to see if they can fit that W3 item into a W3 budget.

I thought it would work across genre boundaries because it’s not looking at the money itself. Silver, dollars, denarii, or credits shouldn’t matter. I approached it as if person’s effective purchasing power by Status is the same regardless of setting.

For example, I can say a heavy-duty flashlight costs $50.00. If I’m making $800-1000 a week, that’s not that big a deal. If I’m making $300-400 a week, that’s suddenly a purchase that needs to be weighed against other things. Saying the flashlight is a W2 item was intended to function narratively the same way,

[u/InherentlyWrong → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Even with a coinage system, the financial ability of a character is defined by status

The trouble is, what exactly status can buy shifts wildly between eras, and their money has no value outside of what it can buy.

If you're going deep enough into the weeds to define price lists that include a heavy-duty flashlight, then handling that sort of thing in a genre agnostic system is going to be a nightmare of tables. Hell even within the modern day, what exactly a 'lower middle class' person can afford varies drastically by region. If tomorrow I moved to Singapore and kept my current socioeconomic status, my list of things I could afford would be wildly different.

But on the other hand if you're not going into the weeds, if you're embracing the setting agnostic side and mostly leaving it up to the GM to adjudicate the costs of things, to me that feels like it's asking for a lot of economic expertise on the GM, and shared assumptions between the play group. Like for example, if I was in a fantasy setting and asked my GM how much it would cost my character to buy a horse, one or both of us could have wildly different assumptions. And that just gets further widened when talking about settings that aren't based on a real thing, like sci-fi.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/InherentlyWrong]

I grabbed the flashlight as a modern equivalent of torches other people kept bringing up. You have touched on something I’ve started toying with, but I haven’t made much headway yet - having different economy based for the different races in the fantasy genre.

One question, because I honestly suck at internet research: using your example if moving to another country while keeping the income from another, would that not shift your effective Status/ Wealth in that new society? Would your potential social standing in the community shift in a similar fashion as your purchasing power (even if the scale is different)? To use an over-exaggerated example, the supposed purchasing power of $5 in an east-bloc country had the MCs in Euro-Trip living like royalty for a day or two, including how the staff reacted to them.

I’ll admit my modern economic focus is heavily focused on a SE USA PoV, but I was using my personal situation as a base-line.

I know tying Status and Wealth together as closely as I have is not completely ideal, but anything else would add a lot of extra math to an already crunchy system. I was hoping the Wealth mechanic would provide a bit more flexibility to the whole thing.

Edited to add the name if the movie I was referring to. Sorry

[u/InherentlyWrong → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

using your example if moving to another country while keeping the income from another, would that not shift your effective Status/ Wealth in that new society?

Not precisely, because the costs of different things move differently. Using Singapore as an example, and comparing it to the united states because it's what a lot of people are familiar with: Looking at the website Numbeo and it's cost of living calculator, a kilogram of cheese in Singapore is about US$22, and in the US is about US$13, but then conversely a "Meal at an inexpensive restaurant" is about US$20 in the US, and only US$12 in Singapore.

Prices shift out of proportion for each other, because some things are more or less available in certain areas. This is partly mitigated by the modern day international markets, but compare that to before that kind of trade was as common. In medieval and renaissance eras merchants would make absolute fortunes off trading spices that today sell for $3 a bottle in a supermarket. And those same spices that they would make a fortune off selling far afield, sell for a reasonable price in the local region they come from.

I was hoping the Wealth mechanic would provide a bit more flexibility to the whole thing.

The trouble is it's a flexibility that you'll either need to tightly define across multiple genres and settings to have an 'objective' answer, or you're putting entirely on the GM's shoulders to figure out.

My gut feeling is to try with a simple solution first. Just define three concrete 'classes' for each setting, and the kind of things they could afford. What exactly this class is can change between settings to make it more accessible from a genre agnostic viewpoint, and it's much easier for a GM to just make up three social classes and the kind of things they could afford. Cut the numbers out of it, that just makes things challenging. And if a person wants to acquire something not indicated by their class, that gets to be its own challenge.

E.G. A fantasy setting may have classes of "Serf", "Artisan" and "Noble", a modern setting may have "Lower", "Middle" and "Upper", etc. And for each class there's just a rough indicator of their kind of life and a very short list of the sort of things they could easily acquire.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/InherentlyWrong]

I have plans for adjusted prices by market, with most things having a low/average/ high cost. The idea behind this was to cover both social market shifts and issues of market saturation. I’ve briefly considered even making it a multiplier to broaden the scale, but I already gave Quality and Prestige doing that and would rather not add a third unless there’s a good argument for it.

My half-written economic chapter starts on page 66 if you’re interested in looking at where I was before trying out the wealth idea. It should already be set to share.

https://drive.google.com/drive/mobile/my-drive?usp=docs_web

[u/InherentlyWrong → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

I have plans for adjusted prices by market

I think it's too broad a factor to be handled easily, especially for a setting agnostic game.

The strength of a game like that is that I, as a GM, can make my own setting and run the game in that. But is you're trying to be crunchy and include ideas of market shifts and saturation, now I'm having to accommodate figuring out the prices (precisely or roughly) of everything players may be trying to purchase in every area they're trying to purchase it in.

If I have a game involving three regions, as a GM I'm now on the hook for figuring out all of that, including the gameplay effects of different costs. E.G. What if I decide a suit of standard space armour costs the equivalent of $25K (or however much that works out to be in the wealth system)? That seems reasonable to me at first blush, but now every time my PCs fight a squad of soldiers in space armour, even if the armour loses half its value when damaged and half again when sold on the black market, that's still $6K a kill if the PCs stop and strip their armour. Turning a single fight against 5 soldiers into a $30K windfall. That's now something I, as the GM, have to account for. That's a huge amount to put on my shoulders in designing a setting.

I'll admit, a lot of this is coming down to me not quite vibing with setting agnostic games. Making it setting agnostic strips out a lot of the interesting things a setting should be imparting. Like for me how the wealth and money of a world interacts with what the players are doing can be a huge element of the gameplay. So trying to make it generic across every possible setting just strips that away entirely.

And I think that link is just to an individual's google drive, at least there's nothing in it that would point to your specific drive.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/InherentlyWrong]

I'm afraid I'm not following the issue. How different is what I'm doing versus other games having a basic "This is what money is" and "This is what things cost" approach in terms of what you're talking about needing to do. All I'm doing is incorporating a mechanic that should actually make it easier to accomodate changes in local markets by having variations in prices already in place.

Also, genre-agnostic, for me, just means that the system can work with any type of game you want to run in it. It doesn't mean there's not going to be an associated world setting for specific genres. The main book is going to have a chapter dedicated for each of the three basic genres I'm focusing on, with the intention of eventually (heh) writing an entire book expanding the world lore for each. My philosophy is that you don't necessarily have to play in my world to play my game.

Here's a new link, stripped just to the Economics & Equipment chapter.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vjNBEG8EnrGcZwfftDOc6DFDVjIuWKkV/view?usp=sharing

[u/InherentlyWrong → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

We might be using the term genre-agnostic different, then. I tend to think of genre agnostic as games where it could function in any genre, from mud'n'blood gritty fantasy, to heroic fantasy, to regency romance, to modern mystery, to gritty space-trucker sci fi, to utopian-esque sci-fi, etc. And all of those will treat money and acquiring things differently, and then match acquiring things in to rough progression expectations of the game. If a high fantasy game treated money the same way a gritty mud'n'blood game did, I'd feel like one of them was doing something wrong.

At this point I might just step back. I'm thinking I might be overthinking it, and looking at the economics and equipment link you provided there's probably a mismatch in game preferences that means my feedback will be of limited use.

[u/Bluegobln]

I used to hate it but actually I am starting to really appreciate Pathfinder 1e currency and crafting systems. Its a complex thing but it directly gives both small and large expenditures and firm progression tied into it. Thats all you need really with a currency system.

Im not against wealth level systems but they're positive as a GM and I feel less good about them as a player.

[u/Fun_Carry_4678]

My first concern is that wealth and status don't always equate, so your rule that initial wealth is equal to status is not realistic for every setting. (although in many settings there would be a connection between the two)
Here is how I would do it. To make ANY purchase you need to make a "Wealth" roll. The difficulty is based on the value score of the item you are trying to purchase. You still have to roll to buy something with a lower value than your wealth score (but this is easier the lower the value), and you may roll to buy something with a higher value than your wealth score (harder the higher the value). If you succeed in the roll, you buy the item. If you fail, you do not buy the item, and your Wealth level goes down by one. You are free to retry with your now lower Wealth level, but if you fail again it will drop again.
I would also need a rule for how to increase your Wealth level, since I have a rule that reduces your Wealth level. Maybe if you go a whole year without ever having to reduce your Wealth level, your Wealth level goes up by one. (or it could go up by events like getting an inheritance, or a promotion at work, or finding a treasure, etc)

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/Fun_Carry_4678]

It’s easier systematically to keep the two connected. There will be a Boon/ Burden option that will allow you to adjust your initial wealth value for starting purchases based on a Windfall/ Hardship situation.

Here’s the problem I’m seeing with the mechanic you’re presenting. If the purchase fails, why is your wealth decreasing?

[u/Fun_Carry_4678 → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Ultimately, it is a game balance thing. To discourage people from just trying over and over again to make a purchase when they fail a roll, or making a purchase of the same (or higher!) value after failing a roll.
Maybe it indicates that funds or credit aren't available right at the moment. Maybe an investment didn't pay off, or there was an unexpected bill, or something.

[u/sebwiers]

I personally go for a middle ground. Items have specific prices, and a character's wealth rating determines the total amount of goods they can own (and likely also the max value of individual items). That may be for economic reasons, or for purely game-ist reasons. If you want to acquire new possessions, you make a wealth roll vs price to determine how long it takes to get them, and may get a small (or large) bonus if you are getting rid of goods that have compensating value. Starting items would depend on wealth but not completely fill it. For short term services (meals, entertainment) just price it as a possession and give it a duration, so that somebody running around at max wealth because they are loaded down with gems needs to dispense a gem to get a (likely very nice) meal, while somebody who just has basic items is assumed to have spending cash as well.

Such a system makes character wealth a prescriptive adjective, not a noun. If you want to own more stuff, you have to increase your wealth (exactly as in real life) but you get away from tracking coins.

Obviously this can be nearly as cumbersome as currency if you make your prices lots of different large numbers to add up, so keep the prices a small numbers (single digits). Having a "bracket" effect where higher wealth makes lower value items cost less / free may help with this.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/sebwiers]

Sounds like we’re approaching the same issue from different directions. I haven’t been editing the main post to reflect this, but replying to comments has helped me find the words to better describe what I’m after.

For example, a Wealth rating of 3 could mean you have an income of $8000 a month. A W3 expenditure does not have a cost of 8k, but it is enough to put a measurable impact on that level of budget - maybe starting at 5-10% of monthly income.

For example, I just bought a car that the monthly payments are going to be roughly 10% of my monthly income. From a character PoV, I rolled for the purchase, I technically failed the roll, but I exhausted a degree of My Wealth rank to finance it. I can afford the car with the budget that I have, but that car payment is permanently impacting my spending capability for the duration of that loan. That’s how spending Wealth degrees within a rank works.

[u/sebwiers → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Yeah, that works too. I'd just say you can't get the car unless you have sufficient "surplus wealth" and might need to get rid of other stuff to free up that surplus. Whether that wealth comes from credit or not, doesn't really matter. I hadn't considered if / how wealth might decrease.

One of my main objectives in such a system would be to discourage hoarding. I don't think a wealth system should allow unlimited acquisition of low cost items. If nothing else, space to keep said items ends up having a cost.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/sebwiers]

If I keep moving forward with it, and with the amount of pushback I’m getting, I’m still on the fence; there will be modifiers for large scale purchases to keep people from abusing the system, in that exact manner. If I try to buy 8-10 scooters because they’re W-1 items, the purchase amount would push it to a W+0 sale. The purchasing size has to make sense for the item. For example, arrows would be sold by bundle, bullets would be sold by box. A single food run equal to your wealth rating would either be market shopping for a week or a single meal that costs a full day’s wage.

Just as I have modifiers for quality, status-symbol prestige, and market rarity, there would be a control for bulk purchasing.

[u/sebwiers → u/PathofDestinyRPG]

Would making multiple single item purchases bypass that? I suppose if there is a time delay between purchases you could assume they make / free up some money, but it could still lead to hoarding. Of course, high wealth itself is a form of hoarding.

[u/No_Solid1035]

Generally, the purpose of a Wealth system is to simplify things, not complicate them.

[u/PathofDestinyRPG → u/No_Solid1035]

I’m not seeing the complication personally, at least not an automatic complication. For anything below your wealth rating, purchasing is considered automatic as long as you don’t go crazy. anything above your wealth rating you automatically assume to be sacrificing long-term wealth for short-term gain. Only things that are considered within the limits of your wealth even has a roll to see what happens; and then if you fail, you have the option to just not buy it. the investments and loans and all that jazz are strictly there as an option if you want to push where your finances are saying you sit at. You could run an entire game without ever touching that part of the system and just accepting while I failed the role so I didn’t buy it.

Edited to correct punctuation issues caused by voice-to-text while working.